The rolling fairways of Meadowbrook Golf course in Phoenixville, which is the subject of an eminent domain hearing. (Photo by Kevin Hoffman, The Mercury)

WEST CHESTER — A Chester County judge will mull how she’ll decide in the eminent domain dispute she heard Friday between the Phoenixville Area School District and a pair of Meadow Brook Golf Club’s owners.

“We just have to hope for the best, I guess,” said Patricia Young, one of the owners who filed against the school district.

“I think (Friday’s hearing) reaffirms my faith in the judicial system,” said the school district’s executive director of operations, Stan Johnson. “I’m confident (Cody) will come up with a fair and balanced decision.”

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Johnson and Young both were called for testimony by their respective lawyers in the case.

Young and Bruce Campbell form CY (pronounced “sigh”) Group, which owns 50 percent of the shares of Meadow Brook and filed objections against the eminent domain decision. A previous court hearing was held in March.

Arguments centered mainly around whether the Meadow Brook site, referred to as being 50.1 acres, is larger than what the district actually needs to build its desired early learning center and elementary school. The combined building is designed to replace the Kindergarten Center and East Pikeland Elementary School in response to overcrowding.

As of May 1, Johnson said the district’s enrollment in kindergarten through fifth grade stands at 1,839 students. In those grades, there is a building capacity of 1,650 students.

Modular classrooms have been utilized (there will be 18 in the district after this summer), but Johnson said their life-span ranges from just five to seven years.

Redistricting to even out capacity issues at the other elementary schools and putting all kindergartners and first-graders in the early learning center is hoped to alleviate overcrowding, but Johnson said that hinges on the opening of the new building, scheduled now for the fall of 2017.

“It at least says the optimum usage is 10 acres for an elementary school and an acre per 100 children,” after that, Hagner said during his closing argument. “I submit that the school board was at least familiar with that because they’re responsible for the costs (of construction and acquisition).”

Andrew Bellwoar, special counsel for the school district, as well as Johnson, said the figures put forth in the code present the “minimum” and are “advisory, not requirements.”

“The sizing of the building is based on needs we currently have and will have in the school district,” Johnson said. “We would not be responsible to build a building that only houses the minimum.”

“In general, maximum approvable site sizes shall be the stated optimum, plus one acre for each 100 full-time equivalent students in projected enrollment,” it said. “Minimum approvable site sizes shall consider factors related to land availability, proximate shared use land, and other reasonable considerations.”

“Optimum, to me, I don’t read that as ‘a minimum,’” Hagner said. “I read that as ‘the best.’”

He and Young believe that, given their reading of district data available at the time of the school board’s vote in November, the site size should be 19.5 or 20 acres.

When the district was looking for potential properties to purchase and build the school, the criteria for a site included that it be “30-plus acres.”

In his testimony, Johnson said the school district had a list of 90 potential properties which it eventually whittled down to five, one of which was Meadow Brook.

Asked where the other properties were, Johnson listed four:

- A site on the “north side” of Phoenixville, owned by the borough and used currently as a public park “with some athletic fields” (estimated at between 35 and 40 acres).

- A property off of Hares Hill Road (between 42 and 43 acres).

- A “mobile home site” in the “Route 29/Main Street area” (between 40 and 45 acres).

- The CAT-Pickering High School site, owned by the Chester County Intermediate Unit, previously discussed publicly in board meetings as having been a potential finalist before neither the intermediate unit or the school board could agree on a cost (60 acres).

“We, meaning the school board, exercised the eminent domain decision as a last resort,” Johnson said after the hearing, echoing sentiments of board members in November. “We wanted to reason a settlement to purchase the land.”

Currently, the proposed building is planned to house 1,229 students over 152,000 square feet.

In addition to the building, the plan includes constructing two baseball fields, two softball fields, two multipurpose sports fields and a district maintenance building on the property.

Hagner said that was excessive but Johnson said there is a need for all of the above in the district.

With Phoenixville Area Middle and High schools adjacent to the proposed Meadow Brook campus, those fields could be utilized by teams from the secondary schools, according to Johnson, and not just used by the primary-school level children in their recess and physical education classes.

Sports fields so close to the secondary buildings are so appealing to the district because 19 of the district’s teams have to be bussed off-campus to fields.

Johnson and Keith Lieberman, vice president and district manager of T & M Associates, an engineering firm, said the building is designed to allow for future growth in the district.

In closing, Hagner maintained that the district was overreaching when it voted to acquire Meadow Brook.

“You can’t stockpile land and that’s what they’re doing,” Hagner told Cody during the course of his closing argument. “You’ve got to be (acquiring land) for present use.”

“In essence, at best, the objections here are second-guessing the decision of the school board,” Bellwoar said in his closing argument.

By law, he said, the court has to be “deferential to the decision-making” of a local governing body in cases like these, barring evidence of “fraud or abuse,” which Bellwoar contended was not presented during the hearing.

Cody explained that “the law (she) is held to” assumes that “the condemnor has acted properly” and requires a great burden of proof from the side which has been condemned.

Although she provided no time frame in the hearing for her decision, a call to her office later confirmed that the decision would not come down for a week, at least.

About the Author

Frank Otto is a general assignment reporter covering Phoenixville, Limerick and Spring-Ford schools in addition to features and spot news. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Otto moonlights with the sports department on occasion. Reach the author at fotto@pottsmerc.com
or follow Frank on Twitter: @fottojourno.